


Object of Study

by HeronS



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Drama, Ethics, Friendship, Medical Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 16:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6712276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeronS/pseuds/HeronS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tennek, a Vulcan scientist whose team studied the Human-Vulcan hybrid Spock as a child, comes aboard the Enterprise to continue the study. This brings up questions of ethics, medical consent and trauma as Spock tries to balance a personal wish for integrity with his feeling of duty. McCoy and Kirk do their best to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An uncontrolled variable

"We're picking up Scotty's spare parts, the gravity stabilizers, the replacement replicators and Uhura's new smell translator thingy…" Jim ticked off the items as he walked briskly towards the transporter room.

"The olfactorisemiotical board, Captain" supplied Spock stonily. _Well look at that,_ mused the captain, _he can talk after all. Now for the other one…_

"Right, right." he continued. "And a medical researcher, what's his name…" he cast a glance at the doctor.

"Tennek" muttered McCoy "from the T'Hal research group." Uncharacteristically there was no dig at Tennek's Vulcan ancestry from the medical officer. Yet the walk from the bridge had all the tense silence that usually spoke of a more serious disagreement between Jim's friends. By now an expert in this dynamic, the captain decided to not stir this particular bee hive for the moment, though he reckoned he might have to later unless it resolved itself on its own.

"As you know, captain, the T'Hal research group is an institute under the Vulcan Science Academy. It has received many of the Federation's highest accolades for excellence in biochemistry, biophysiology and genetics" supplied Spock.

"Yes, well, as I would have known if I'd actually read the detailed background, but I'm afraid once I saw that he'll only be aboard for a few days I... didn't." They entered the transporter room and Jim nodded to the technician, a petite woman who was deeply focused on her conversation with the ground. "In my defense, Mr. Spock, I did read those two tellarite articles that you sent me on the physics behind the new gravity stabilizers. So I hope that makes up for it?" he made it into a question and smiled at his friend, but Spock's tolerance for human banter was clearly not high today. "Your prerogative, captain" was all the half-Vulcan replied as he stood stiffly by the console, hands behind his back and eyes fixed firmly on the platform.

Jim frowned, but nodded to the technician who was looking expectantly at him. "Energize."

Just as the transporter had begun to glow, the door whisked open and Uhura entered. The lieutenant had a communication ear extension in her ear and a rapidly updating clipboard in her hands, flashing with status reports. Her linguistics department was rewiring its backup circuits to allow for test of the new odor-sensing and emitting universal translator upgrade. Until now, the Enterprise had been using a home-made device of Uhura's own design when communicating with beings that used smells and pheromones. Starfleet's Vulcan labs had taken their design and had turned it into an official prototype. It had taken eight months, and Uhura had grumbled that there were few if any improvements.

Jim focused on the transporter platform, which now held three big crates and a Vulcan male with slightly darker skin tone than Spock and carefully groomed, close-cut hair. He was dressed in floor length, dark grey Vulcan robes, with some subtle dark grey embroidery on the sleeves that could be vines, or, Jim guessed, more probably a stylistic rendering of a verse from Surak in High Vulcan. Tennek threw a quick glance around the room and Jim thought he detected an uncertainty, maybe even a hostility behind the carefully neutral expression. The captain raised his hand in the ta'al salute and said in Vulcan " _Dif tor heh smusma_ ".

Tennek blinked at him and hesitated for a moment and then, in what could have been a polite gesture or, more likely, a dismissal of Jim's poor pronunciation responded in English. "Peace and long life."

"I'm James Kirk, captain of the Enterprise. It's an honor to have you aboard, Doctor Tennek. My more knowledgeable colleagues tell me that the work of the T'Hal research group is well respected." The Vulcan nodded and stepped carefully off the pad. "This is my chief medical officer, Dr. McCoy, also head of the Life Sciences Department." McCoy nodded stiffly, and Tennek returned a minuscule nod. He had his eyes fixed on Spock in an evaluating manner, the look of a scientist considering a specimen. He did not raise his hand to greet his fellow Vulcan, however, and instead looked over at Kirk and opened his mouth to say something. Kirk continued firmly "And this is my Science Officer, Spock ch'Sarek, whose work I'm sure you are familiar with." He was bending Starfleet protocol by using Spock's patronymic, instead of the regulation required standard titles, but mentioning Spock's father, might be good if the Vulcan scientist was going to be difficult. He knew that although Spock's relationship with his father had improved during the last few months, Spock still intensely disliked bringing up his powerful family. Kirk had no such compunctions.

Tennek considered him for a moment, nodded, and, finally, returned his gaze to Spock and brought his hands up into the ta'al. The two Vulcan exchanged quiet greetings, but then Tennek turned to the captain again. "It would be most efficient if I could be shown my lab space immediately."

Kirk had thought to ask Spock to get his countryman settled, but Tennek's odd behavior raised all sorts of warning bells. For all the pacifism, noble ethics and high minded reason that Vulcans were famous for, Jim had met a surprising number of racial purists, who disliked the hybrid nature of his first officer. If Tennek was one of those, Jim wasn't going to let Spock anywhere near him. With a glance he appropriated the transporter technician, who stepped smartly out from behind her console.

"Crew woman Jones will show you to your quarters, and then to…"

"I do not require quarters. This vessel will stop at Memory Prime in four days. I shall work until then."

"Nevertheless, as per regulations, you have been given quarters - to use or not as you see fit" he nodded at Jones who smiled at the Vulcan and pointed to the small silver-colored briefcase he carried "Can I help you with that, sir?" When Tennek merely looked at her, her smile faltered, but she stepped briskly between them and led the way out into the corridor. The Vulcan scientist followed.

When the doors had closed on them, Jim sighed and rubbed his forehead. On the platform, Uhura was unpacking her new hardware with enthusiasm, but she'd also noted their visitor's behavior. She threw a long displeased look after the Vulcan, and then a concerned one at Spock. Kirk gave her a tired smile and nodded at the corridor, and the communication's officer hefted the crate and took her unpacking elsewhere. "Good luck" she mimed at him before the doors closed behind her.

"Alright." Jim said with a frown, turning to his two companions. "Tennek seems a cold fish. And I'm guessing you know why" he stabbed a finger at Spock, "and so do you" he continued onto McCoy who kept a sullen silence.

"Spock, is this one of the racial purist fools?" he moved in front of Spock. His friend did not meet his eyes, and answered in measured tones.

"He is, as far as I know, not a conservative or an isolationist. Indeed, his work would make that difficult."

"Then what's with the… impolite behavior. Doctor, what do you know that I don't, that makes you act all stiff?" The Doctor snorted and said, darkly "Oh, I can't say a thing, captain."

"What do you mean, you can't, doctor" said Jim angrily. He was about to go on heatedly, when Spock's words registered with him and he continued in a more thoughtful manner. "And… what do you mean with his work, Spock? What is it that he does?"

He locked Spock's unwilling gaze with his own, and waited. It took a few moments, but finally Spock's shoulders dropped slightly in defeat. Jim practically saw his mental shields lowering slightly in the way his eyes regained some of their expressiveness. Jim didn't know if it was their shared mental link - the product of many mind melds - or just him having laboriously become an expert in his best friend's minimalist body language, but he knew Spock was embarrassed and defensive.

And he knew that knowing that, getting to be a person who knew that, was a rare gift.

He took a step backward and grimaced "Sorry, Spock. I shouldn't push. I don't like him because he doesn't like you, and I'd like to know why. But I only need to know what you want to tell me."

The doctor had watched their exchange intently, but kept uncharacteristically silent. Now that he knew better what to look for, Jim sensed Bones was both frustrated with, and concerned for, their friend - a common combination of opposing feelings for the doctor. Jim took another step backwards and lowered his eyes, waiting to see what Spock would decide.

"There is no reason for you to dislike Doctor Tennek, captain." Spock said finally, softly. "He is an outstanding scientist, and quite conscientious about his work." Jim looked up, questioningly, and Spock continued with some reluctance. "And at the moment, I am that work." Jim started. He hadn't expected this. Spock nodded to the glowering McCoy. "Doctor, I withdraw my request for doctor patient confidentiality in this matter. It is quite plain that you wish to discuss the situation."

"You bet I do!" exploded McCoy. "He has no business being here…"

"He has every business…"

"After what those people put you through…"

"'Those people' were my physicians, I owe them…"

"Nothing! Nothing! You owe them nothing, you…"

"Alright, ok" interrupted Jim holding out his hands in a mediating gesture "this went too quickly from no words to too many words. Spock..." he tentatively put a hand on Spock's arm. "Spock, who is this Tennek to you?"

"Doctor Tennek is a geneticist. He was one of the people who were consulted in my conception, and who worked... with me as I grew up." Jim nodded. Spock had been one of the first Vulcan-Human hybrids. "After I was eleven, there were no further biological and chemical interventions needed, but until I left Vulcan there were regular tests as part of their longitudinal study of my physiology."

"Spock, wait, what exactly does intervention mean here?" asked Jim, concerned. McCoy answered.

"Oh, it's kosher, Jim. Officially. This was pioneering cross-species work, they had to monitor him carefully, adjusting hormones and biochemistry. And they were very professional, careful records kept, very detailed. Very detailed articles too, in the Academy Medical Journals, subject GS-001."

"Your tone indicates your disapproval of this, Doctor. I should perhaps not be surprised…"

"Oh shut up, you idiot. They treated you like a damn lab specimen, Spock. And yeah, sure, they had to keep an eye on you, but you were also a child. A child!"

"I am a child no longer."  
"But you still have the world's most carefully concealed panic attack whenever you enter my sickbay, Spock. After all these years."

Spock's eyes flashed, and the transporter room seemed steeped in dangerous darkness for a moment before the Vulcan, hands tightly gripped behind his back, turned on his heel and exited without a word. Jim exhaled, and had a momentary inner battle between following and staying, and settled on the latter when he heard Bones groan.

"Bones, what the hell!"

"What am I supposed to do? Huh? It's true. And I can't be silent, Jim, I just can't." he held out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "Look, they did nothing wrong, officially. He was never hurt, from what I can tell, not in any way a Vulcan would care. But until he finally got away from that place, to Starfleet, they regularly measured him onto their own Vulcan scales, and whenever he was below any growth curve, any test, they attributed it to his human side, and tried to fix it. And that was their job." The doctor's eyes flashed angrily. "And there's no human ethics board that would ever be ok with the constant testing that they did - but Vulcan medical ethics rules are different. No less stringent when it comes to the biological side, but with far less considerations for psychological trauma. They were less interested in him once he'd stopped growing, and once he'd gotten out of that… that place" he gestured angrily, and wrongly, at where he thought the planet Vulcan was outside the ship " they settled for him supplying them with his full medical evaluations. The last few years I've signed and sent them myself. I didn't think twice about it, until the Pon Farr, didn't know that it wasn't just Vulcan record keeping. But then, after he nearly died because I didn't know enough about him to do my damned job and see what he was going through, I bullied him into finally opening up his entire medical history to me. And I read all the careful articles, all the learned debates in black and white about how insufficient they thought him. And I finally got why his heart rate and adrenaline spikes at the beginning of those routine physicals that I eventually manage to force him to take." The Doctor took a deep breath. "Jim… Tennek didn't ignore Spock because he dislikes him. He did it because as a scientist, you don't want to have anything but controlled interactions with your lab rat."

* * *

Tennek waited within the doors of his quarters. He did not sit down. The human had said that she'd be along in another half hour, which now meant 17.3 minutes, to escort him to his lab space after "he'd had a chance to settle in". He'd made the conclusion that this was an important cultural obligation on the humans' part, and decided to comply.

He'd thought to occupy himself by reviewing his testing protocols, but found that he had to meditate for emotional control instead. He had trouble regulating his breathing and perspiration. The ship was as had been expected - Tennek had naturally called up its specifications before coming here and gone over them in detail with his bond mate, a micro-electricity specialist. She'd found the wiring interesting, and been forced to admit to some regret to not be able to experience the implementation of the cutting edge technology of the Federation flagship's famous engine room herself. Tennek did not fully understand this - surely the theoretical advances were the most important, and the only thing available for study here was whatever errors the human engineers had introduced in their implementation...

Tennek tried to trace the negative emotions that had disturbed his normally so ordered thought patterns, in order to deconstruct and eventually remove them in accordance with the Vulcan disciplines. He decided that surely their root must be a frustration with the suboptimal conditions of the study of GS-001. As long as the subject had been in ShiKahr, the number of influencing factors had been finite. Here - with strange radiation, injuries, alien flora and fauna on strange new worlds… How was he to account for all this, in his report on the biochemistry? And he had to - too many parameters were off. They had thought that the subject would not be able to enter Pon Farr, the Blood Fever, but that had been proven spectacularly wrong, and garnered the GS team an official request to add a research comment as an appendix to one of their 30 year old articles on the subject. Not a request for retraction. Not yet. That was what had finally led Tennek to conclude that he had to see the subject in person again. The Pon Farr was the second great error that had plagued the study that he had built his career on.

The first had been the rebellion.

The low emotional control of the subject had been a concern for the first few years. The mother's lack of proper parental care and discipline could not be seen as a defect - she was what she was, a human. That Ambassador Sarek had not been able to be enough of a stabilizing anchor to the hybrid had come as a surprise. Yet there had been a marked improvement in emotional control after 13.6 years - the chart was very clear, and the change was statistically significant and the projections for increased control steady. That was one of the reasons why the sudden wilful disappearance of the subject at the age of 20 had come as such a surprise. It had not been predicted by the team - but, fortunately and appropriately, it was largely seen as a failing of the house of Surak by the research community at large. After the subject had grown past the most important developmental thresholds, Sarek and Amanda had refused the team continuous access to their house for regular monitoring of the subject.

Without data, they could only do so much.

It was not their fault.

There. That would be the reason for his concern, his feeling of panic and helplessness, and the key to how to reassert control.

The emotions vanquished by steady control, Tennek continued standing with his eyes closed in the dark, small room, inside the small metal ship sailing through the vast, fatal vacuum of space, far, far from home.

* * *

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	2. An unexpected correlation

It took Spock 1.45 hours to get to the meditation alcove in his quarters. It was the near end of the shift - for him the fourth, and therefore last, active one in the 4 on / 2 off standard cycle that he had negotiated with the Doctor. Human crewmembers did 1 on / 2 off, and senior officers and department heads typically did 2 on / 1 off / 1 on / 2 off, as their extended duty required. Eight hours work, eight hours leisure, eight hours sleep was a good steady rhythm for humans, giving a stable base that could be disrupted when ship's conditions required higher readiness. Aboard Vulcan ships, following Vulcan hours, the standard cycle was 4 on / 1 off - Vulcans did not understand the need for leisure. If an activity was important enough, surely it should be scheduled.

What did a Vulcan Human half-breed need? No one knew. It was not so simple that the solution could simply be derived at by averaging Human and Vulcan needs. Things were seldom simple with him.

The last time he had been stopped had been by Specialist Aherst, who, like all those before him, had had a very reasonable request. Spock reminded himself of this as he perused the amended schedule for the coming intraship research workshop on electrical fields, approving changes on the datapad as he went along. The topic was a bit broad for his taste, but bringing together researchers from many departments to share their work in progress often yielded interesting new cross-disciplinary insights. In this case there would be specialists from engineering, biochemistry, physics and - mostly due to Science lab 8 being a dedicated Preserver artifact research group - anthropology.

"You may proceed, Mr. Aherst" he finally said, returning the datapad. The Human, who showed evidence of both Asian and Aboriginal ancestral traits in his features, looked relieved but still remarkably nervous. He stammered a thanks, but Spock held him in place with a glance. "Is there something the matter, Mr. Aherst?"

The man shook his head vigorously. "No. No, sir. Unless, pardon me, but unless there is something we should change? You seem… concerned. Displeased. Not that you seem anything! It's me projecting. I'm nervous. I babble when I'm nervous. Silly." Aherst finally ran out of words, and looked like he wanted to flee. Spock's eyes were bottomless wells of disapproving darkness, and he felt like a man granted a stay of execution when they finally turned away. He was just as grateful for that as he was surprised by his superior officer's next words. "Mr. Aherst, you have done good work with this workshop, and with your individual projects. I am pleased with your progress. It would be wrong to interpret even a measure of censor from my body language."

"No! I mean yes. I mean thank you, sir, that's…Not that there is a reason to thank logic, as you've said. I guess" he swallowed "that I just want to say that I'd never want to fail you, sir." Blushing like a school boy, Aherst nabbed the clipboard and, with a nervous nod, made his escape.

_I have clearly failed you_ , thought Spock, _if I am broadcasting my internal lack of emotional control so much that it causes pain and discomfort in the very Humans I am responsible for_. This last shame was added to the growing mountain that he was steadily repressing, and he realized that it was no longer possible to put off meditation. He simply ignored the two blue-clad Ensigns, arms full with stacks of datapads, that had hovered expectantly by the Science Lab 7's doors, and strode out into the corridor and then into a hastily evacuated turbo lift. He wondered if the two assistant geophysics specialists in it had intended to get out in this section, or if his poor control had made them fear him, like Aherst had. He tried for an approving nod at them, and their pleased smiles made him even more conscious of the weight of his responsibilities, if such a simple gesture could mean so much.

In his quarters, he logged off duty in the ship's system and could finally sink down on his knees in front of the meditation flame.

He relaxed his body, slowed his breathing until all his concentration, all his senses were focused inward. The room ceased. Nothing existed in the outside world except the flame. Elegant analytical structures, envisioned as slowly twirling silver threads, flew from him, downwards, into the realm of emotions. The pit. He expected to find shame and anger, and was somewhat prepared for them.

This was the Acknowledgement. Surak himself had taught that this was the first part of any attempt to control - acknowledgement of the existence of the disharmonious emotions. Some schools held that the High Vulcan word meant Acceptance, not Acknowledgement: acknowledgement was not enough for true control, acceptance was necessary. As he grew older, he was reluctantly coming to agree with them in theory, but in practice it was hard enough for a proud ( _vain! You're vain!_ ) Vulcan to even handle just acknowledgement.

Another breath.

SHAME. He clearly needed to deconstruct the emotion - it was massive and intense, but there were several parts to it, a multitude of daggers.

The lack of control itself, and letting it affect subordinates and colleagues. SHAME. This was the most recent feeling, but not the pivotal one. He had failed, but he was used to failing, and would work harder to insulate others from his weakness. This he could handle.

SHAME for letting a trivial matter become a burden for others. He had already decided, years ago, to continue participating in these studies, even as he'd left Vulcan. They caused him no harm, and could be important for another half-breed… another hybrid. There was no logical reason to refuse. He had no right to refuse. No rights.

ANGER. At Doctor McCoy for raising this issue, insisting on making something out of nothing. When the two of them had reviewed the Science departments task list for the trip to Memory Prime, McCoy had noticed Tennek's name among the list of local scientists who had had their applications approved to use the constitution class ship's impressive facilities to conduct experiments. The human had objected, loudly, insisting that he knew, could see, that this was not what Spock wanted, that this was hurting him. As if he had a right to judge that. It had trapped Spock in an impossible position...

ANGER FEAR trapped helpless darkness DO NOT LET THEM SEE.

_What was that?_

* * *

Trapped…

Science Lab 2 should have been devoted to biochemistry and genetics, knew Tennek. It even said so outside the door. Yet it was clear that a great deal of the experiments being processed by the robots inside were cross-disciplinary in the widest sense of that word. This, he felt, was indicative of the muddled thought stream of this human dominated ship. Yet, he had to admit, that the brief notes that he had read on the dead cybernetic songbird from Mistral II that was being carefully broken down in a corner were… fascinating.

He had the lab to himself. He had wasted no time setting up his work environment, and was now letting the computer reanalyze the last few years' data on the subject, taking the radiation readings of the Enterprise structure into account. Unfortunately, as soon as he did not keep busy, his inexplicable breathing problems returned.

They were most vexing. He was not trapped. There was no logical reason for this… sensation.

The sound of the door opening was both a relief and a slight annoyance. When Tennek saw that the visitor was the chief medical officer, he was pleased.

"Doctor McCoy" he nodded to the human. He had requested further scans on the subject's post-Pon Farr biochemistry. He knew they must exist, but his computer access rights were not enough to bring them up.

"Doctor Tennek" the human gave him a long look back. "You're here to do some experiments on Spock."

"Indeed. You have read the approved application for use of the biochemistry facilities?" One could never be certain with Humans.

"Yeah. I read them. Look, Tennek, you're not very welcome here."

Tennek's eyebrow went slightly. "I fail to see why - or the relevance of that statement, if true."

"I bet you don't see it. You hurt Spock, and you'd be surprised at how protective this ship's crew is of him."

Tennek blinked once in disbelief. "I have most certainly not. In fact, Spock's current robust health is due in no small part to the constant ministrations of the research group." As he used Spock's name, he felt uncomfortable. While the denotation of "Spock" and "GS-001" might be the same, the connotations were so widely different. The demarcation was necessary for scientific objectivity - yet there was little point in insisting on it if the human was going to use the name anyway. Spock.

"There's a line, when someone goes from being a patient to being a specimen, Tennek. When you induce trauma in your subject, you're way past that line."

"Your accusations are unprofessional and illogical, McCoy." Following the Human's lead, Tennek dropped the titles. His few non-Vulcan colleagues had not prepared him for the inundation of emotions a single, angry human could bring to a small, enclosed space. He wished to leave - but no scientist, no doctor, could with such unjustified accusations hanging in the air. "You are welcome to bring them up with the ethics board of the Academy. I state that we had Spock's parents' full consent up until he underwent the Kahs-wan maturity rite, and his own after that." This did not mollify the Human doctor, who took an angry step towards Tennek.

"Once Spock was out of danger, there was no justification for the continued testing. You were just collecting data for your articles. I don't give a rat's ass about your maturity rites. He was a kid! And then, when he wasn't, he had still had a dependency relationship with you for years and years. How can you talk about consent. He clearly doesn't want to do this - but you've maneuvered him into a corner where he can't say no."

Tennek didn't know what to do with this torrent of assumptions and strange claims. "You are clearly anthropomorphizing the situation onto some human scenario, McCoy. You have somehow decided that Spock is a victim, rather than a willing participant. You have, based on no data that you have been able to produce, decided that he has been harmed." The Human just glowered at him. "Doctor" he held out a conciliatory hand, trying hard to live up to the teachings of Surak "I ask that you trust me - we also have a medical oath, forged by desperate necessity in a far more violent time than that of your Hippocrates. 'Do no harm' is the leading tenet of my life. I assure you, on that oath, that the testing scheme created for Spock is now being used successfully for several more Humanoid and Vulcanoid hybrids. No one has been harmed."

McCoy put a datapad on the workbench between them, placing it there with deliberate, exaggerated care. When he spoke, his voice had turned soft, but it was the softness of silk fabric gliding over the dangerously sharpened edge of a _lirpa_.

"Doctor Tennek - are you really sure you would know if they had?"

Tennek found to his amazement that the clear, obvious, mandatory, affirmative answer died on his lips in the face of the other's certainty. He stared at the datapad in confusion. The Human left without another word, and Tennek once again felt the oppressive closeness of the room, and the deadly pressure of the vast vacuum outside.

_I am not trapped. I am not trapped. I am not trapped._

* * *

Trapped.

_What was that?_ Spock recoiled from the blast of emotion, slamming down repressive controls on top of it. He did not recognize this. A memory? These were not his emotions. Repulsed and suddenly exhausted, he gave up on the analytical structure in which he had encased the emotion, pushing them instead down, away, locking metaphorical doors as he exited the meditation with unseemly haste.

He had not even made it past the first stage. The emotions were repressed, but not mastered. He let his hands rest on the embroidered mat beneath him, drawing ragged breaths. What was it with this trivial matter that haunted him so?

The door chimed. He realized it had done so at least once before.

"Spock? It's me."

He had expected the captain to come, once the system had noted that he had logged off duty. He had, however, counted on meditation granting him the serenity to insulate his friend from his internal turmoil. _Kaiidth_. What was, was. He took a breath, rose in a fluid motion, tugged his uniform tunic straight and crossed to the desk to press the admittance button.

The door opened onto intense, hazel eyes.

"Do you… want me to come in?"

"You are always welcome, captain."

Kirk smiled ruefully. "You know that's not what I asked, right?"

"Please, come in."

Jim stepped into the welcoming warmth of Spock's quarters. Most of the rest of the ship was a monotone, perfect 21.3 degrees celsius. Jim always enjoyed the variety.

"Well, Bones is angry…" he started, with a half smile, to downplay the importance of this.

"I owe the Doctor an apology."

"I don't think so, but that's up to you. He thinks he owes you one, though. He figures that he didn't handle this matter so good. And it's pretty obvious that he feels guilty for not seeing that you really don't react well to being on a diagnostics bed. I almost had to lock him in sickbay to keep him from coming here earlier. I figured you needed some space. Was I right?"

Spock looked uncomfortable. "Yes. I have meditated. My reactions have been problematic, affecting my effectiveness. And the crew. Mr. Aherst drew the erroneous conclusion that I was displeased with his work, and this caused him some concern. I shall enter that in my daily report."

Jim shrugged. "I'm sure you corrected that misunderstanding. Spock, your staff has you in the highest regard. We can't have the standard be that a department head being occasionally cranky is cause for a log entry, or I'd have to fire Bones. And myself, for any crew interactions before I have my morning coffee, for that matter." He tried a smile, but saw no reciprocal glint in Spock's eyes. _Alright, still not very tolerant of human banter._

"Ok, tell me about this Tennek. Bones' reaction has given me this irrational desire to throw him out an airlock - tell me why I'm wrong." Jim sat down in his usual chair by the small table. After a second, Spock took the other. He gathered his thoughts. This was where he could correct the earlier misconceptions.

"Jim" he started, decided that the subject warranted using the captain's nickname. He sensed a pleased reaction from the other man, "I had a very privileged upbringing. Vulcan is a prosperous planet. Part of that privilege was access to some of the best medical researchers as my personal physicians. When I was a child, an at risk hybrid child, the monitoring was almost constant. As I grew older, it became a less obvious presence in my life."

"We often have very different interpretations of relative words like "less obvious", my friend…"

"On average once every other week for the last five years before I left for Starfleet academy. They would do a battery of tests, and see how well I performed on physical, intelligence, telepathic and emotional control tests. Dr McCoy seems to think that there is some trauma attached to this. I find his reasoning flawed, and possibly…" he hesitated. Jim leaned forward. There was very little time to consider alternate phrasings of what he was about to say. "...insulting to those people who lived through some of the real horrors that still plague parts of this galaxy."

There was a moment of silence. Then Jim breathed out hard, and stood up. Spock, uncertain, stayed seated.

"You mean people like me, Spock." There was... anger? in the captain's voice. "You mean horrors like the Tarsus civil war and eradication camps. Spock… Spock, these things are not relative, different bad things can not be measured on the same scale…" Less anger in the voice now. Though still a marked intensity.

"They are." He responded, reasonable. "Pain can be measured."

"They're not! And to hell with you for saying that they are!" the Human's anger took them both by surprise. Jim took a deep breath, words coming in clipped sentences. "I survived weeks on Tarsus. Most people, most other kids, that I met in that inferno didn't. The killing squads found them. Or they were caught in the crossfire between the governor's troops and the adult resistance fighters. And lots of those street kids who were captured did so because I couldn't get them to listen. Because they were scared and didn't trust the tunnels I'd found. Some that survived are still in recovery wards, because being in those camps will do things to a mind that destroys it. And I wasn't in them. I escaped. I wasn't destroyed. I had no injuries that a famine recuperation diet and day in a regen tank couldn't fix. Relatively speaking, that was nothing. Compared to so many others. And yet, when I break - and I do: the psi2000 mental virus for instance, or that damn Beta XII-entity - Tarsus is flashing before my eyes and it's all about loss of control, failing people around me. And the two things that keep me from drowning in survivor's guilt are… first, repeating again and again that trauma isn't relative. And the other thing is... you. My friends. Rocks in the tempest, anchors in the storm. So don't you dare start relativizing damage." He turned away from Spock, took refuge by a corner with a 3D chess board, their interrupted match from the other night. As always, Tarsus brought a wave of memories - but he was an adult now, had ways, protocols developed largely thanks to Bones, to deal with those.

Spock didn't speak until he saw that the captain had regained control of his breathing.

"I ask forgiveness. Unreservedly. I would ask you to please believe that I have never seen you as weak."

"Then, Spock, I submit that it is arrogance that lets you posit one code of morals for the rest of us, and keeping another one to judge yourself by."

"I… agree. Jim…"

Jim waved him off and returned to the table and plunked down in a chair with a sigh.

"No, no, it's me that should be sorry. This shouldn't be about me. I'm handing this all wrong. But let's not get caught up in a web of mutual apologies, brother." He smiled, a bit tiredly, and the torrent of anger from a minute ago seemed to have disappeared. Spock marveled at how quickly Jim could face, master, get over so intensive emotions. He felt he was several steps behind, still trying to analyze the sudden anger in the room, and figuring out if it was truly aimed at him, or something else. Now Jim was instead exhibiting concern, affection. Hesitantly he sat down across from the captain.

"Between the reappearance of Tennek, and your human friends suddenly shouting at you, and this has got to be a pretty.. confusing day for you, Spock."

"...Indeed." The captain looked at him, but kept his silence. Spock got the impression that he was willing to sit there the rest of the night to get what he waited. Which was some further understanding of Spock's own troubles. _Kaiidth_.

"My meditation was unsuccessful. I am having difficulty mastering my emotions. I am having difficulty… understanding those emotions." Jim nodded, and waited. He knew that for Spock, this was a very personal confession.

"I acknowledge that I feel unresolved anger toward Doctor Tennek. It is, as I have stated, unwarranted. I also experience… shame. And… a memory of being trapped. A memory of darkness. I do not understand this."

Jim tilted his head and considered him. "You know, I don't think it's really all that complicated…"

The rest of what he was about to say got lost as they were suddenly slammed towards the roof of the room. Chairs, chess pieces and Vulcan tapestries joined them, painfully, in a twisted pile for a second before gravity was restored and they found themselves on the deck. Spock extricated himself from a tapestry and noted that his captain seemed incensed but unhurt. He threw a glance at the wall of dangerously sharp heirloom weapons, but they had been bolted down tight for a reason. Kirk swore and launched himself at the intercom. "Kirk to bridge, Kirk to bridge!"

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thanks to S, who was kind enough to contact me and share their own ambivalent experiences at being at the (necessary) mercy of doctors and researchers.


	3. A tentative conclusion

**Object of Study, Chapter 3 – A tentative conclusion**

After McCoy had exited the lab, Tennek stared at the datapad the Human had left him. It was sleek and black, somehow forbidding, the screen temporarily shut down. Starting it up was such an easy, obvious, trivial matter, yet he hesitated.

No doctor could ethically ignore accusations of maltreating patients. Yet a most insistent part of his mind was telling him to not waste time on the emotionally compromised words of the hysterical Human doctor. A headache was taking root behind his temples, and reminding him that the strange… unease he had felt ever since coming aboard the ship seemed to increase to painful levels unless he kept himself occupied. He snatched up the datapad and started reading.

The pad held patient records for GS-001. Spock. From the time of the subject's sudden disappearance from Vulcan, through various physicians at Starfleet Academy, and then from Dr Boyce and finally the disquieting Dr. McCoy. It was an anticlimactic find - he had acquired this information already.

However McCoy had highlighted particular files and Tennek found himself browsing through medically uninteresting schedule log files - a long list of star dates for medical appointments. It did not surprise him that so many of the subjects medical check ups had been postponed and canceled - space was a terrifyingly (why had he chosen that word?) uncertain place where surely little order and efficiency could be achieved, especially among so many Humans.

It wasn't until the next batch of highlighted files that he made the connection.

Apart from the IQ tests (astonishingly high, for a hybrid) and the tests for emotional control (disappointingly low during childhood, dramatically and suddenly stabilized during the adolescent years) Tennek and his colleagues had focused on the biochemistry and physiology of their subject. Among their more celebrated successes was the fact that several potentially fatal allergies had been removed by targeted chemical therapies, and that the dangerously high cell mutation index had been forced down to an average of the Human-Vulcan rate. These kinds of interventions invariably led to a cascade of other biochemical deviations, that in turn had to be checked and brought down to fit with the projected Vulcan-Human averaged curves that they had decided were to act as the benchmark for the individual. It was most exhilarating work - a puzzle where each move led to changes on the board. As one biochemical component in the body was modified two others would be affected. The frequent tests and necessary modifications were done with the utmost care for scientific replicability and validity. The interaction between the team and the subject had always been kept at a minimal.

As the subject grew, the team had gathered some subjective data on his perceptions of the changes through carefully controlled yearly interviews. The subject had not been particularly forthcoming, but had confirmed that he experienced no negative side-effects that had not already been detected and reported by the team.

Yet guided by McCoy's highlights, Tennek began to wonder if that was correct. The thought was chilling, and he had to carefully regulate his breathing. Again.

Most medical scans of the subject had the elevated adrenal levels and intense activation of the amygdaloid nucleus and the periaqueductal grey zones - the flight or fight centers, as they were known in the vernacular - that he had come to see as normal for the subject. He had, himself, spent an inordinate amount of time trying to stabilize similar readings when the subject had been younger. It had never worked. McCoy had now linked a sample of these medical scans to pattern buffer scans from transporter materializations. These were cruder in their analysis, but clear enough to make the Human doctor's point.

The non-medical scans had significantly lower activations of the flight or fight areas of the brain. He could only attribute the differences to the testing situation itself. It was the medical examinations itself that were the source of the heightened stimulation of the emotional centers. Trauma.

His grip on the datapad tightened involuntarily, as a sudden memory rushed through him. One of the few times he had interacted with the subject ( _Spock_ …) in an uncontrolled situation. A mind touch, involuntary. The subject ( _Spock_.) had experienced a sudden negative reaction to a new biochemical protocol to monitor his hormonal development. He had been able to restrain himself from calling out, but Tennek had seen the biomonitor spiking, and rushed out of the control chamber into the testing cubicle, all sterilized white walls and biobeds. One hand had held down the convulsing body, the other administering a hypo with a detox shot. Tennek had been afraid, unforgivably panicked over his medical failure, and to make matters worse the loss of mental control, coupled with the physical connection, had thrown them into a brief mind touch.

_Trapped. Judged. Pain. Do not let them see. Do not let them know._

Shocked at this unintended, devastatingly unprofessional, telepathic contact, Tennek had quickly withdrawn. How could he have let that happen? He'd focused on the biomonitors and tried to ignore, and give privacy to, the subject's ( _Spock_!) striving for control. Once the detox had cleared… Spock's… systems, Tennek remembered that he had explained the problem and specifically asked if there was any reason not to go on with another compound. It was standard procedure to ask. There had been a long silence. Tennek had asked again, and received a terse reply: _That is surely the only logical alternative._

The datapad splintered in Tennek's grip, but he had only a short second in which to register the pain (moderate to severe, 6 on a Likert scale) and the blood (minor, but plentiful, lacerations) before the artificial gravity fields reversed and he was suddenly slammed into the light fixtures of the Lab ceiling.

"Everyone was upset twice more in the next hour as the Enterprise lost artificial gravity yet again. It wasn't as bad, (it did not reverse again, nor were the walls and ceilings targets of the newly-made graviton fields) but the Lower Decks remembered it with bruises and wry faces for the next week.

As weightlessness took hold, Spock simply hooked his legs under the computer console in Auxiliary control and kept working. He methodically handed out assignments to the thirty four science staff that he had pulled into this project. Their assessments of log files and error messages began streaming back to him, and he started developing a general view of what had gone wrong.

He put in a call to Mr. Scott, who responded with a grunt and the noise of a tool hitting metal. The Engineer had apparently gotten down to Engineering and was busy trying to restore the old stabilizers as a backup system.

"The whole point of these newfangled beasties was supposed to be that they used so much less power. ( _Loud banging noises._ ) I was seduced by that, Mr. Spock! Ach, ( _OW!_ ) I should have known better, shouldn't have trusted the official compatibility rating. Here I was, forcing them onto the puir systems. ( _Ensign Martin! Laddie, look out!_ ) Oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry..."

Spock surmised that the last comment was not in fact directed to him, but rather was a plea for forgiveness from the Enterprise herself. He refrained from saying that he and the captain had also approved the stabilizer replacement - when humans were feeling guilty, reason was often secondary to a need to emotionally vent. Only then could a more balanced alternative be introduced.

"Mr Scott, I have found a solution to our problem. We shall need a kinetic graviton converter."

"A what? Mr Spock, I've never heard of such a thing." ( _Bang!_ )

"It is a device that takes 2300 milli-cochrane as an input and outputs 150 graviton units. You have not heard of it because you have not yet built it."

Hearing Mr. Scott's sharp intake of breath, he hastened the relay of information by 10.4 percent.

"I shall need it as soon as possible. I'm sending you the mathematical background now. I think you will agree that it solves our problems."

Scotty broke into a storm of protest. Then, he muttered to himself, which gradually turned into musings. At last, he turned to his colleagues and began an animated debate with them, whereupon Spock closed the link.

Next, he had a brief conversation with the captain, who was coordinating from the Bridge. Enterprise had dropped out of warp and was coasting along on impulse in a particularly barren part of space. The captain sounded tense – the inaction of patient waiting when his ship was in danger sat very ill with Kirk.

Spock handed out further assignments to his staff, resisting taking on the more interesting research aspects of the graviton fields himself, though part of him desired to do so.

He was setting up a project structure for this work, in which he himself had only an advisory capacity. On any other vessel, the captain would have been able to split the bridge duties with his First in situations such as this; thus, his haste on the task and his deep need to be on the Bridge despite his desire to work on research.

Spock had vowed to never make the captain regret the choice to give him the dual assignment of both First and Science Officer - but he could not be in two places at the same time. Admittedly, Jim had never indicated that he had a problem with Spock's division of his workload; still the Vulcan sometimes knew that he was performing inadequately.

Logically, this was because he was one person preforming the work of two. However, he could not let the Captain down.

Spock was just about to lock down his station when the intercom whistled.

"Uhura to Commander Spock."

"Spock here."

"Sir, I have that head count you asked for. All personnel is accounted for: two in sickbay with major injuries, eight with minor. Ensign Yuen was knocked unconscious by the initial gravity reversal, and was found behind some equipment in a storage room only a few minutes ago. Nurse Chapel tells me that she'll be fine, though. But I'm afraid that we've been unable to locate Doctor Tennek - we initially thought he was part of a group of other visiting civilians that had been gathered for an emergency gravity briefing in rec room 4, and we've only realized just now that that was incorrect. He was last located in Science Lab 3. Shall I send a security team?"

Spock considered this. He was next by the lab. It would surely be illogical to waste the time of additional crewmembers.

"I will check Lab 3 myself, and call for a team if needed, Lieutenant."

He signed off, gathered his data dics, and walked towards the labs with forced calm, remembering...

Apart from the short greeting earlier in the transporter room, Spock could recall speaking with Tennek only once, even though the doctor had been a constant presence in the background of his life on Vulcan. The memory began playing in his mind, although it had been long suppressed to the point were he was able to remember it in text format, no longer living it in his mind.

He was ten years, eight months, three days old. The scientists had used a common biochemical compound - one that no full Vulcan would have had a problem with - in an attempt to try to force his system into compliance with the determined norms. However, it had almost killed him.

He was used to failing in front of the coldly judging research team by then - his hybrid physique was a constant source of problems for others. The fact that it could also be a source of scientific knowledge was, he had thought, one of the few contributions he could offer the physicians as a small recompense for the time and resources they had to spend on him.

When his heart had suddenly begun to race and his body started to convulse, his control failed and in panic he had grasped telepathically for Tennek as the physician held him down. Before the older Vulcan's mental screens slammed down, he'd clearly experienced Spock's childish panic and fear. As soon as the detox hypo shot took hold, and Spock could force his breathing into a regular rhythm and think clearly again, he'd been awash in a mix of shame… and unforgivable sense of anger towards the man who had helped him.

An anger he'd only realized, during his talk with Jim earlier, that he still had not deconstructed and banished all these years later.

With a deep breath, he planned his next course of action. He would ascertain Tennek's whereabouts and then distance himself from him. It would not do to cause further problems for the doctor or the study.

The lab doors opened onto a scene of chaos. A small cleaning bot was valiantly attempting to impose order in a corner, wheels whirring with exertion. Small implants and delicately carved metal feathers had exploded over the room - Spock noted that Mr. Aherst's attempt at understanding the mechanics of flight of the Mistralian cybernetic songbird would seem to have had a major setback. Datapads lay strewn about the floor. Spock's eyes focused on one of them, lying just inside the door. The screen was cracked, and a smear of green blood stained its surface. Spock immediately felt his earlier apprehension wash away, overlayed by a clear, professional focus.

"Doctor Tennek?" he asked in Vulcan. There was no answer, but as he ventured into the room, he discerned a foot, clad in dark blue lab shoes, jutting out from under a table. He quickly crossed over to the back of the lab, and knelt down on the floor. "Doctor Tennek!"

The Doctor lay under the table, back pressed against the wall, one hand clenched in a fist. The other, stained with dried blood, limply rested in his lap. His eyes were closed tight and he was breathing in short gasps.

Spock reached out towards his shoulder, to see if a small shake could get the reaction his words had not. Tennek's uninjured hand shot up and blocked him, and he said, in a hoarse voice "No!" He drew another breath "No, I need no help." His eyes remained closed.

Spock took out the tricorder he'd picked up for his hunt for answers to the gravity problem. It was not primarily designed for organic processes, but a few commands jury riggged its sensors to work as a crude medical tricorder. He pointed it toward the Doctor and raised a concerned eyebrow.

"I beg to differ, Doctor. The wounds on your hand seem to have coagulated, but your breathing pattern is abnormal. I fear physical impacts during the gravity reversal might have caused some internal injury. I shall call for a medic."

"No!"

The single harsh command stopped Spock momentarily from getting up. "No. That is not necessary. I require only solitude. I will solve this on my own."

Spock pushed back a destructive feeling of irritation. "I regret that the situation has forced you to have to interact with me, Doctor. But your well-being clearly trumps the concerns of your research. You must understand that I will not leave you until I am certain that you are better, or benefitting from more skilled aid." He started getting up, heading for the wall-mounted communicator, but was again stopped by Tennek's words.

"Please, Spock. Don't."

The unexpected plea made Spock hesitate. Tennek opened his eyes slowly and spoke again. He did not look at Spock "There is nothing the humans can do. I am not physically injured. The problem lies in my mind." Tennek's voice was low, shamed and fell into silence.

He was silent for so long that Spock was about to speak, but then he continued, slowly. "Ever since I came aboard this vessel, I have been beset by intense mental sensations of constriction, being trapped, fear. A certainty that the walls are about to crumble, and the vacuum of space well in. My pulse becomes elevated, my breathing constricted. My thoughts clouded, instinct driven. It is illogical. I will not be a burden to the physicians here. I must control this. The failure lies with me." Tennek's gaze sought Spock's, and the jumble of emotions in them made Spock instinctively wish to look away, but he found he could not. He wondered if the doctor might have suffered a concussion.

"It is possible that the reason is… guilt," Tennek went on with dogged determination, forcing himself to say things that must be said. He straightened some and tried, unsuccessfully, to push the panic away. His clenched hand trembled slightly. "It is… a very recent hypothesis. Doctor McCoy made me aware of the fact that our research team most likely have induced a neuropsychologial trauma in you by our medical research - a conditioned bodily response of elevated adrenal levels and amygdala activations with panic as a result. Presumably experienced not only throughout our testing, but also continuing even now in similar physical situations, such as routine medical procedures."

Now Spock looked away quickly, as if stung. He rose, looking down at the doctor, and spoke in clipped tones.

"Doctor Tennek. You might have suffered head trauma. Let me call…"

The other man interrupted him. "No. Listen. Spock. I think… I knew. I felt your... fear of us. It is possible that I always knew, that faulty discipline kept me from acknowledging that... guilt…"

The doctor fought for control.

_Guilt, panic, fear._

These feelings were not, had never been, part of his world. He lived a sheltered life of comfort in the well-ordered Vulcan society. If asked a few weeks ago, he would probably have said that he never expected having to have to deal with such destructive emotions - in himself or in others.

Spock's voice cut into his thoughts. "Doctor, you are not reasoning clearly. Our concern right now is your welfare. Please do not concern yourself with what might or might not have happened many years ago. I recall consenting to all your tests. It can only be seen as a small way of repaying what I owe you and the team."

At this, Tennek got up. He seemed unsteady, and Spock instinctively reached out to support him. The Doctor caught his arm in a tight grip. "Spock, you owe us nothing. You never have. And it becomes clear to me that your participation in our research has not been voluntary in any way that matters. By mixing our treatment of you as a patient - treatment that not you, nor any of our other hybrid patients, ever have to earn - with our research on you as a subject, we have made a great error. Our oaths require us to do no harm… We must stop this research. Shut it down, all of it..."

At the doctor's words, Spock felt his earlier, failed attempts at bringing order to the jumble of his conflicting emotions suddenly become clearer. He did not know if he and the doctor had influenced each other telepathically, or if the memories of the same, traumatic experiences - carefully hidden, all but forgotten for both of them, locked away - had been independently woken in each of them at their renewed contact. He himself had intertwined feelings of shame at his inadequacy in the researchers' many tests, and anger at them, born by the helplessness of not being able to find a way to refuse the tests that he had, secretly, feared. Without acknowledgment of all these emotions, the destructive cognitive complex could not be broken down and disposed of.

It suddenly struck him, that what had been such a difficult, laborious realization for him, was probably something that the captain and Doctor McCoy had intuited quickly once they had grasped the situation. In some ways, his human friends had no emotional discipline. In others, they had a profound knowledge of emotional workings that Spock could only hope to one day aspire to.

Tennek's trembling increased and Spock helped him into a chair. "My heart beat, increasing… If this is how strong our ancestors experienced emotion, I do not understand how they survived… My vision is blurry… The walls..."

At Tennek's words, Spock's newfound clarity allowed him to focus and find another piece of the puzzle. He picked up his tricorder again and made some very special modifications, focusing it on Tennek's right parietal lobe. Yes, that was it!

Tennek trembled and had grasped the sides of the chair, leaning forward. Spock had to kneel down in order to catch his eyes.

"Doctor. In many ways, you are correct. I too have realized that I have harbored unresolved destructive emotions since childhood - specifically towards your research team. Your presence, and Doctor McCoy's timely, though unsolicited, interventions, have made me understand this and come closer to mastering them. But, Tennek, I am not a child any longer. I do not need to deal in absolutes. It would be a shame if you unilaterally decided to end your research with hybrids. It is of great value to all. It is not certain that others have reacted like me, or that your future approaches could not be redesigned after your current realizations. If you seek my forgiveness, you have it."

Spock saw Tennek process this, struggling, like himself, with the inappropriate, but seemingly unavoidable, level of emotion in their conversation. If he was correct, Tennek would need to find some internal grip of his intense emotions towards Spock, so that this could be separated from what was in all likelihood a fairly regular panic attack.

"I do not think all of your current reactions are a result of some… guilt on your part. You say that your vision is affected, that you have an irrational fear of the vacuum outside the ship. You also show some very specific brain waves. All in all, these are well-known symptoms of astrophobia."

Tennek blinked in confusion. "...Astrophobia?"

Spock nodded.

"Fear of space." Tennek closed his eyes again, shame overpowering his terror for a second. "An illogical and useless condition. My rational mind knows that there is no danger, but I cannot stop the irrational reaction. I… am embarrassed."

"I do not follow your reasoning, Doctor." Spock raised a bland eyebrow. "There is no reason to be embarrassed. This is a fairly common phenomenon among humanoids experiencing deep space for the first time. Indeed, while I do not have any statistics, anecdotes indicate that some seasoned star travellers never get over it. Rear-admiral Harris, responsible for overseeing the Neutral Zone on Deep Space 3, once remarked to me that it hits her every time she boards a ship."

"...Every time?" Tennek looked taken aback. Spock notice that he had loosened his grip on the chair somewhat.

"Indeed. Most often it gets better after the first few days. It is often called 'gaining one's space legs'."

"I do not understand that term." The talking clearly helped. Tennek hesitantly let go of his death grip of the chair. Spock rose.

"Its etymology, I believe, comes from 'having sea legs', which indicates having the balance necessary to counteract the inner ear effects of the wave motion of the ocean. This effect led to 'sea sickness', a common nausea caused by the movement of the sea. The point, doctor, is that you are simply one of the unfortunate beings who are prone to it. There is little you can do to vanquish it. But there are standard hypo shots designed to alleviate the discomfort. It would be ironic, after our recent discussions, if you were to repeat the mistakes I made as an adolescent, and be too proud to report your troubles to the physicians in sick bay."

Tennek considered this. Then he nodded once, and took several deep breaths. Spock could see how his tattered control reasserted itself, how more than a century of Vulcan discipline took hold and, finally, was able to bring order into the confusion in Tennek's mind. When the doctor looked at him again, it was with regained composure, but Spock could still sense a quiet ocean of regret in the older man.

"Would you be so kind as to help me to sick bay?"

There was only one response that Spock's cultured Vulcan upbringing, all the years of focus on obligation and duty, would let him make.

"Of course, Doctor. It would be my honor."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The talented MaryChapel agreed to help me beta-read this chapter, for which I am immensely grateful. Her many suggestions and rewrites improved the text so much. 


	4. Ramifications & Consequences

Object of Study - Chapter 4.

"Alright, what do we have here?" said McCoy, pausing at the doorway to run a sterilization light over his gloved hands. Tennek was lying on a biobed, his damaged hand already neatly bandaged by a nurse. He was fighting the temptation to slip away from all of this into a healing trance.

McCoy threw a glance at the journal pad. His eyes rested lightly on Tennek's hand for a moment before they shot up to the biomonitor on the wall. He frowned, and raised a tricorder.

"You will wish to do a three c-n scan of the right parietal lobe, Doctor" said Tennek, resignedly. "There are no physical reasons for the abnormal biochemical and neurochemical readings. It is likely that they are... a mental failing on my part."

McCoy's glance clearly indicated that he wanted more information. Tennek schooled his features and went on.

"Astrophobia."

"Huh. Yeah, makes sense. That can't be easy to deal with for a Vulcan, I imagine. And it's not a failing, but now's not the time for that discussion."

The Doctor's matter-of-fact reaction took Tennek by surprise. He'd readied himself for at least some veiled scorn. The Human had been so emotional and aggressive before. But now the Enterprise's CMO only shrugged, looked at his tricorder readings and continued.

"Yeah, seems like a textbook example. Well, we can help you with that, at least a bit. He pulled up a hypospray, made a few adjustments and showed the contents to Tennek. The Vulcan nodded – he was not familiar with the problem, but the drugs would stimulate various calming neuropeptides in his brain."

"Alright, I need a baseline to judge the effects of this. I need you to tell me how you feel... sorry, eh, what internal sensations your overactive brain is giving you, right now. And not your guesses about your body's reactions, Doctor, your subjective feelings... blast it. Alright, listen. I'm no good at politically correct Vulcan-talk. Substitute whatever word you need to for 'feelings' and maybe we can communicate."

"It is not logical to ignore what is clearly there. I have no objections to the word 'feelings', in this particular context." Tennek pushed down his humiliation, and proceeded to give McCoy a terse account of his... feelings the last few days. The claustrophobia, the fear, the panic. He also included his talk with Spock, the fact that improperly managed guilt probably played an important role in his sensations. This would have to be differentiated from the effects of Astrophobia.

McCoy kept his eyes on his tricorder and nodded only every once in awhile.

"Ok. That's good. I'm upping the epsilon factors by .4, if you're ok with that, Doctor? Good. Let's get this going. You should start feeling better in about a minute."

He gave Tennek the shot, and stepped back.

Without a tricorder of his own, Tennek did not know if his suddenly slower heart-beat was a chemical or placebo effect. A sufficiently disciplined Vulcan mind should have very little placebo effects, but that was clearly not him at the moment. After his pulse slowed down, his vision became slightly better, and his breathing slowed. He had not realized the intense sense of dread that had hung over him the last few days until it started to lift.

But it did not disappear.

He reported this to McCoy, who shrugged again – a multipurpose Human gesture that was too vague to be of any real communicative value.

"Yeah, when it comes to Astrophobia, we can't get rid of all of the symptoms for you. Best example I can think of is that old space dog Harris - famous all over the quadrant both for her high warp speed piloting, and because she always gets a panic attack first day off the soil. If you ask me, it's not the space itself that should make people weird out, it's those damn transporters... Now that'd be logical." McCoy hummed to himself for a minute, studying the readouts, and then, having concluded that his patient was all better, he carefully put down the tricorder and the datapad. When he looked up again, his carefree bedside manner was gone. The gaze he leveled at Tennek was penetrating.

"You've probably heard the Standard idiom of the cloud with the silver lining?" Tennek nodded. He refrained from pointing out that clouds on Vulcan were associated with rain or shade – and symbolized good fortune.

"I'm suggesting then, Doctor, that you don't meditate the rest of these effects away, at least not immediately. You desperately need some experience with empathy, or you're going to end up hurting more people than you already have. If Spock's not holding a grudge, then I... well, actually I still can, but I'm going to try to respect his choices here and focus on limiting the damage you do in the future."

Tennek would not let himself be angry. "I am aware of our previous failings in accounting for possible trauma induction in our patients. This awareness comes from rational discussions with Science Officer Spock. Any personal discipline failing, like my destructive feelings of guilt, are irrelevant to this realization."

McCoy shook his head in amazement. "I swear, sometimes I don't know how you people managed to figure out the steam engine, let alone space flight. Can't you see that it is linked?"

Tennek hesitated. "There is a chance that Science Officer Spock and I have influenced each other telepathically, heightening certain... emotions. It might have caused him further trauma in the last few days. There is certainly a local connection there. But I do not acknowledge a larger connection, or the usefulness of these very destructive feelings."

"You're about as stubborn and insular as they come, Tennek. Do you really think you would have made these realizations, that your highly invasive, constant treatment of your young hybrid subjects can cause trauma, could be causing trauma right now, even though everything looked alright on the official papers, if you hadn't had this very subjective, very non-Vulcan experience yourself the last few days?"

"I fail to see what constructive point these insults will have on..."

"It's a human discourse tradition. Live with it. Don't hide from what I'm saying behind tone arguments. In my mind, you Vulcans have gotten one thing right – it's actually possible to change your minds by reasoned arguments. When confronted, most Humans just cling to their pet theories and grievances and only look for evidence that support their view and disregard the rest. You're surely better than that, aren't you, Doctor? Sympathy and empathy, Tennek! Think."

Tennek strove for humility. It was very difficult. The Human, the young Human, was speaking to him as a Thought Master might to a student. "Sympathy and empathy, McCoy, are from a human psychological theory. They envision a difference between empathy, the ability to experience, in your own mind, the feelings and suffering of another; and sympathy, the ability to understand and care for the sufferings of the other without reliving that suffering in their own bodies and minds. A degree of sympathy is necessary in any true veneration of life. I have always held empathy to be useless - it spreads suffering needlessly to more people."

"Yeah. You're dead wrong there. These last few days you've been feeling trapped and powerless in a situation where all your logic tells you that those feelings are unwarranted and illogical, right? But they still cause harm. If you let yourself remember that feeling, use that feeling, the next time you have to painfully correct the biochemistry of your young hybrid subjects, already probably judged as strange and inadequate by their societies, you might just catch on to those signs of possible trauma that you missed before. It's like..." McCoy sought a good analogy "like studying a report of a patient, and seeing that patient in person. Like the difference between reading about the smell of a garden... eh, an oasis, or going into that oasis. The personal recognition makes all the difference. Tennek, your research group is called on to work with hybrids from all over the Federation. You have to get this right."

McCoy caught Tennek's gaze, and held his breath. _Come on, don't let your Vulcan pride ruin this. You're a scientist, damn you. I've seen Spock abandon months of work once he admits to himself that he made a mistake in his basic assumptions. I'll never get how that balance between Vulcan arrogance and Vulcan humility works, but please be reasonable this time, you pointy eared space elf. I don't want to have to take this any further..._

McCoy was fairly certain that Tennek couldn't read his mind, but was gratified by the Vulcan's silent contemplation during the next minute. When this finally amounted to a "I shall consider your hypothesis with great care, Doctor" he had a mixed feeling of wanting to either strangle Tennek or give a shout of joy. In the end, he decided to settle for small victories, and temporarily withdraw from the battlefield.

He had something else he urgently needed to do.

* * *

Spock appeared on the bridge just in time to receive Scotty's enthusiastic report on the construction of the new graviton kinetic converter device, which had somehow already received the truncated and (in Spock's mind) illogically uninformative slang name gravicon by energetic junior officers. The older gravity stabilizers were working again as a temporary solution, but with the gravicon they should be able to do in-house repairs to the new system in a few hours. The crew's suspicious glances at the ceilings and extra clutching at railings were replaced by other concerns - their world had turned upside down for a little while, but, in the larger scale of things, such a thing came with being an explorer.

The captain was all focus throughout the first simulations, but then, as it became clear that his crew had once again come up with a miracle quick solution, he gave a short ship wide speech of encouragement and commendations, and then switched his focus to his first officer. Spock could feel his patient but unyielding attention, and for a brief moment he thought about insisting that he personally needed to oversee the rest of the work. A quick glance over at the center seat told him that it wouldn't work, and so, with a small sigh, he accepted his fate and went to stand by the command chair.

"All proceeding according to plan, captain. One point three seven hours until the last simulations are complete."

"Excellent work as always, commander, my compliments to you and your team. Yeoman, we'll be in my quarters. Would you bring by something to eat in an hour or so? Thanks. Let's go."

Kirk nodded at Uhura who let them pass to the turbolift and then moved to the center, not missing a beat in her instructions to an entourage of three red-clad, wide eyed communications ensigns.

Once in his quarters, Kirk motioned Spock to a chair and went to get them something to drink. He looked over his shoulder and smiled,

"You look incredibly uncomfortable, my friend."

Spock allowed himself a small sigh.

"I surmise that you wish to discuss Doctor Tennek. I recognize that the sharing of concerns is an expected and integral part of the cultural construct of Human friendship."

"It can be. You don't have to share anything, though, unless you want to. I recognize that respect of privacy and self-sufficiency are integral parts of Vulcan relationships…"

"I would not wish to fail in my social duties in this friendship."

Kirk put down to glasses, and sprawled on the other chair, the wrist of his right foot placed on the knee of his left leg. He gave Spock a thoughtful glance.

"You worry too much about duty and failing, Spock. With this, with Tennek, with the study. It's like a red thread going through all of this."

It was said matter-of-factly, like an obvious fact. Spock gave the Human a look of amazement, and possibly slight envy. "It is possible that you are correct. That what is strength in one situation, can be a debilitating factor in another. What I do not understand is how you could have reached that conclusion so quickly, with so little information."

"Hmm… well, I extrapolate, I guess. From myself. From others around me. I don't know exactly what you've been through, Spock, but since I've felt similar things myself - clashing needs of duty, obligation, personal desires - I have a head start in figuring it out in someone else. Basic empathy. And I know that it can be hard to sift through all of that. Having input from people you trust often helps."

Spock still looked uncomfortable, but determined. I admire you so much, Kirk thought, knowing that saying it would just add further confusing emotion to what his friend was trying to untangle. Talking like this goes against all that you've been taught. Slowly but surely, you fight your way through the preconceived taboos and cultural norms of both your worlds. It's you that I think of, when I'm surrounded by alien customs on a strange planet. Is there something to learn here among all this strangeness? What would Spock do?

"Bones might disagree, but I see that you think that there's no fail-safe, perfect ethically pure way for you out of this. I just want to say this: No one that matters is going to care if you fail every once in a while. And if they care, they don't matter."

"That is a circle argument."

Kirk grinned "Yep. And like the wheel it can be an awesome tool."

For a moment it looked like Spock was going to take issue with the illogical metaphor, but he subsided.

Kirk leaned forward.

"Forget me and Bones and Tennek and Vulcan ethics for a moment. What do you want?"

Spock was silent, and then in a determined tone he said, with no preamble,

"Jim, I do not want to collaborate with Doctor Tennek. But I can find no logical reasons not to."

"Spock, you cannot manufacture consent. It's there or it isn't. Would you do experiments on a dubiously willing participant?"

"...I believe you are calling me arrogant again."

"Maybe a little. Look, this is all about balancing want and need, right. You see the only needs here as being the need for medical research, the needs of others. And you think that your very deep rooted wish to not participate in this is not a need, but a selfish want. Me and Bones don't agree with that, but in the end it's all up to you. But even if it's just a want, Spock, must it really be so… bad? The need for this research, and more importantly for Tennek and the rest of these T'Hal people to be the ones to do it, isn't urgent. No one will die tomorrow. There's a place for want in this equation, Spock. Allow yourself that."

"It is not so simple. "

"Why not?"

"I cannot just…" Spock faltered.

"Why not?"

"...I just say no?"

Kirk nodded, an affectionate smile on his lips.

"You are… laughing at me."

Kirk gave a half hearted apologetic gesture, the smile still on his lips. "Maybe a little. Can you handle that?"

Spock considered him. Even as he had grown to accept others judgement of him as a constant factor in his life, he was at once both blasé and terribly sensitive to it. But there was no malice in Kirk's smile. He felt himself, improbably, relax.

"Yes. I believe I can."

He was about to speak again, when the door whisked open, admitting the small tornado that was the ship's CMO. McCoy took in the scene at a glance and then focused laser eyes on Spock. The Vulcan was about to greet him but was stopped by the Doctor's finger jabbing angrily at him.

"First, did you fix the thingy?"

Spock thought about the dedicated collaborative work done by a number of Science and Engineering specialists, many leaders in their fields, on a time sensitive, highly complex theoretical and practical problem.

"Yes Doctor. The thingy is fixed."

"Good. Then you listen to me, Spock. You have this martyr-savior complex that makes you think that you must always put everyone else before your own needs, or you'll have somehow failed the universe, and this makes you make really really stupid decisions sometimes, and...

"Bones, Bones, last I heard you wanted to apologize to Spock…"

"Yeah, I changed my mind. Not what you need right now, Spock. You're my friend, and my patient, and that makes you my responsibility. And I won't have you participate in this study, and I won't stand for you having to have panic attacks whenever you come into my sickbay."

Spock looked at the jabbing finger and raised an eyebrow.

"Very well, Doctor."

"Now you listen…" McCoy faltered. "...What?"

"Very well."

McCoy's glared at him. He pressed his lips together. Kirk burst out laughing.

"We've already covered this, Bones. Have a seat." He patted the back of a chair. McCoy glared at it as if it might be part of a conspiracy.

He finally sat down. Spock was looking at him with a trace of amusement. The doctor decided that this was vastly preferable to the barely contained fury of the last time they had spoken.

"So you're just going to say no to the study."

"It… appears so."

"And exactly how guilty does that make you feel?"

Spock lifted an eyebrow at him, but responded matter-of-factly. "There are not very many of us humanoid hybrids in the core Federation, Doctor. I estimate a few thousand. I was one of the first Vulcanoid-Terran crosses. The numbers are increasing quite rapidly now, as advances are made in genetics. We are becoming… if not a race, then a template of a race, of our own. There are a number of observations of my physiological and biochemical reactions that might prove of importance to the development of medical care for others. Data should be gathered on as many of us as possible, and then studied and published."

"Now wait a moment, you just said that you wouldn't…"

"You could do it, Doctor."

McCoy was struck dumb for a moment. Kirk pressed a glass in his hand and drew up another chair.

"I… couldn't. No, Spock. I never want you to think for a second that I think of you as some object of study, Spock. Especially after all if this." He studied the glas in his hand for a moment. It was probably brandy. When he spoke, his voice was soft. "Especially after I know how much you have to control to even enter my sick bay. It's pretty horrible for a doctor when you discover that something that you are doing is actually hurting your patient. Not comparable to what your patient is feeling, but still.

"You are referring to the adrenaline surges and amygdala activations that often occur in my brain in a medical setting. You should know that it never occurred to me that they were not simply natural, expected reactions."

"What, you thought everyone who entered my sickbay had panic attacks? No, on second thought, don't answer that."

"I did not, in fact, think that, Doctor. I merely accepted that it was an inherent, irrational personal failing on my part. I do not wish to dwell on this, merely to say that it is not something that I know how to rectify."

"Of course you don't know. And why is that, Spock?" Spock had no time to contemplate an answer to this before the Doctor was once again jabbing a finger at him. "Because you are not a physician or a psychotherapist. Do I try to fix that blasted green compu-whatever when it starts to bleep in my office? No, I don't! I call for one of your technicians instead…"

"You could, in fact, fix the autofixator by turning it off and on again, which would spare the valuable time of…"

"Oh shut up. Listen." As was often the case, the Doctor's voice went straight from incensed to gentle. "A lot of us have phobias and traumas, Spock. There are mental exercises you can use, they're not controversial and have been used for centuries. Jim uses them for Tarsus stuff." Kirk nodded.

"He can't stay on board the ship simply because we're going to have to beam down into an urban war zone that might trigger PTSD memories of the Tarsus rebellion. It'll be easy for you, you're already used to rewriting your reality with all those emotion repressing techniques you use."

McCoy paused, to lend more weight to his next words. "It'll get better, now that we know."

Spock looked at him, with that intent gaze of his. McCoy met it squarely. Come on, you blasted hobgoblin. Come on, my friend…

Finally, Spock nodded. "Very well. I will incorporate your suggestions into my regular meditation techniques." McCoy nodded in satisfaction, ready to let the matter drop. Spock seemed remarkably centered despite the personal nature of the conversation, but he didn't want to push the Vulcan too far.

But Spock continued, "however, there's still the matter of you gathering and publishing further data on my physiology."

McCoy looked like he was about to protest, but Spock cut him off.

"It is quite simple, Doctor. Any involuntary reactions to the sick bay environment aside, I trust you unconditionally."

It was a matter-of-fact statement. McCoy was very aware that it also held, in all its simplicity, a great gift. Spock would sometimes do this. After weeks of what McCoy thought of as distant, even cold, behavior, devoid of all personal detachment, he would suddenly and without warning say things like this. He felt his own frustration, with himself, with Tennek, melt away. _Jesus, Spock. Make me all mushy, why don't you._

The captain was smiling beside him. He hid his own reaction in a growl.

"As you should." He looked at Spock for a few moments. The Vulcan had a calm aura around him. "Alright. But on two conditions. First: we'll co-publish the reports - you're not a physician, but you can at least correct my graphs or something. There must be something useful you can do with all that training of yours. It's your body, your data, and you should damned well have your name on those articles. And second, that you'll tell me the second any of that monitoring and report writing affects your emotional control. You might trust me, but when it comes to talking about your own health, I don't trust you, Spock, not off the bat. But give me your word, and I will."

Spock did not hesitate, but inclined his head gravely. "Doctor, I give you my word."

 

* * *

 

 

A few days later, Spock accompanied Tennek to the transporter room. The ship was flying in synchronization with Memory Prime, and the corridors were filled with busy people. Tennek marveled at the underlying efficiency and order that he could now start to discern in what had originally appeared as the hysterical chaos.

He'd found that his emotional reactions still increased in severity around Spock, but had, at least to a certain degree, followed McCoy's advice. Unchecked and unrepressed, the feelings were destructive and unpleasant, but so was the merciless daytime sun and penetrating nighttime cold of his customary meditation retreat in Vulcan's Forge. Discomfort could lead to realizations. They were symptoms. If symptoms were not properly investigated, the underlying flaw could never be detected. The Humans might call it empathy, but in the end, it was, as are all seeds of wisdom, just a matter of logic.

As they entered transporter room seven, Tennek found it full of people just arriving and waiting to be transported down. The easy camaraderie of the Enterprise did not lend itself to crewmembers coming to attention whenever senior officers entered a room, but Tennek perceived what he thought was a series of largely unspoken communications. The other humanoids noted Spock's presence with respect and deference. A slight shift in postures indicated a readiness to respond to commands. Some smiled, but not in a distressingly overt way. Spock simply nodded to them to continue, and stepped to the side, content for them to wait their turn.

"You have a natural rapport with these aliens, Spock" Tennek noted, in Vulcan.

"The fact that I am half-alien myself does make that easier."

"Indeed." Tennek paused. "If you will permit a personal observation."

Spock contemplated him for a moment, and finally said. "I would value your insights, Doctor." He might have sounded slightly wary, but Tennek concluded that it might just be a projection of his own, still shaky, control.

"I would ask you to inform me if the observation causes you discomfort of any nature. So that I might learn. It is this. When your parents approached us with their plan for hybrid offspring, they stated that they wished to create a bridge between Vulcan and Terra. A living testament to IDIC. At the time, it was controversial, though we were many that approved of their project. Now, most of the opposing voices have fallen, if not silent, then at least very quiet. When you left Vulcan for Starfleet, rather than the academic and diplomatic career that your education had clearly prepared you for, some, myself included, saw it as a sign that that project had failed."

The room had cleared of most of the people, and Tennek stepped forward, but paused.

"I wish to state that I, personally, now see your presence here, and the news of your accomplishments that regularly reach Vulcan, as a testament to the strength of that original idea."

Spock silently noted that it was unlikely that any of his actions, his successes and failures, would ever cease to be viewed as symbols of his heritage. Doctor McCoy would no doubt consider this a grave injustice. Kaidth - what was, was. Duty, loyalty, justice - he would have to continue trying to follow his own ideals, and let the judgement of the worlds fall as it did.

He inclined his head towards the Doctor, who had moved to the transporter pad. He already looked slightly more at ease at the imminent prospect of being away from the Enterprise.

"Live long and prosper, Tennek."

"Peace and long life, Spock."

After the glittering transporter effect had removed Tennek from his world, Spock allowed himself a moment of contemplation. Then, gathering up a few junior officers with a glance and a word, he led them out into the comfortable corridors of his home and haven.

There was, as always, much to be accomplished.

THE END!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: And that was the final chapter of Object of Study. I appreciate all comments, be they about typos or what you think of the characters. Did you find my Vulcans believable? I was aiming for integrity, arrogance, humility, pride, all in one package...


End file.
